Friday, 30 July 2010

This picture is one of only two that show men. Of course these pictures were taken by male photographers and were initially intended only for men.

1850

The texts are in French and German. Maybe one of our friends could help us out and translate this little piece of French and I can post the translation for us all to read.

Our good friend Chross has translated the German text for us. Thank you.

Female sadomasochism and Photography

"Jeaux de dames cruelles" deals with sadomasochism among women as it appears in the already long history of photography. But let's not forget, those pictures were taken by male photographers and were primarily targeted at a male audience. It's not surprising that this topic had been illustrated from the very beginning of photography since it - in a mild form - is part of a passion that - as Georges Bataille discovered - stands at the center of our lives. After Daguerre had made his discovery public, it at first took a century of progress on the field of this totally new art form until photographers could accomplish depictions of real people without problems. The earliest sadomasochistic pictures are extremely rare; and the spanking depicting daguerreoo-model (Remark: difficult to translate and hardly making sense in German, too...) which certainly happened, has yet to be re-discovered. The strict morals explain the rarity of such pictures which - sold only underhand - were hard to market. On the other hand certainly many of these picture have been destroyed, partly due to shame, partly due to negligence.

"Jeaux de dames cruelles" deals with sadomasochism among women as it appears in the already long history of photography. But let's not forget, those pictures were taken by male photographers and were primarily targeted at a male audience. It's not surprising that this topic had been illustrated from the very beginning of photography since it - in a mild form - is part of a passion that - as Georges Bataille discovered - stands at the center of our lives. After Daguerre had made his discovery public, it at first took a century of progress on the field of this totally new art form until photographers could accomplish depictions of real people without problems. The earliest sadomasochistic pictures are extremely rare; and the spanking depicting daguerreoo-model (Remark: difficult to translate and hardly making sense in German, too...) which certainly happened, has yet to be re-discovered. The strict morals explain the rarity of such pictures which - sold only underhand - were hard to market. On the other hand certainly many of these picture have been destroyed, partly due to shame, partly due to negligence.